CVE-2025-37738 | ext4: ignore xattrs past end

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ext4: ignore xattrs past end Once inside 'ext4_xattr_inode_dec_ref_all' we should ignore xattrs entries past the 'end' entry. This fixes the following KASAN reported issue: ================================================================== BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in ext4_xattr_inode_dec_ref_all+0xb8c/0xe90 Read of size 4 at addr ffff888012c120c4 by task repro/2065 CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 2065 Comm: repro Not tainted 6.13.0-rc2+ #11 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.16.3-0-ga6ed6b701f0a-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x1fd/0x300 ? tcp_gro_dev_warn+0x260/0x260 ? _printk+0xc0/0x100 ? read_lock_is_recursive+0x10/0x10 ? irq_work_queue+0x72/0xf0 ? __virt_addr_valid+0x17b/0x4b0 print_address_description+0x78/0x390 print_report+0x107/0x1f0 ? __virt_addr_valid+0x17b/0x4b0 ? __virt_addr_valid+0x3ff/0x4b0 ? __phys_addr+0xb5/0x160 ? ext4_xattr_inode_dec_ref_all+0xb8c/0xe90 kasan_report+0xcc/0x100 ? ext4_xattr_inode_dec_ref_all+0xb8c/0xe90 ext4_xattr_inode_dec_ref_all+0xb8c/0xe90 ? ext4_xattr_delete_inode+0xd30/0xd30 ? __ext4_journal_ensure_credits+0x5f0/0x5f0 ? __ext4_journal_ensure_credits+0x2b/0x5f0 ? inode_update_timestamps+0x410/0x410 ext4_xattr_delete_inode+0xb64/0xd30 ? ext4_truncate+0xb70/0xdc0 ? ext4_expand_extra_isize_ea+0x1d20/0x1d20 ? __ext4_mark_inode_dirty+0x670/0x670 ? ext4_journal_check_start+0x16f/0x240 ? ext4_inode_is_fast_symlink+0x2f2/0x3a0 ext4_evict_inode+0xc8c/0xff0 ? ext4_inode_is_fast_symlink+0x3a0/0x3a0 ? do_raw_spin_unlock+0x53/0x8a0 ? ext4_inode_is_fast_symlink+0x3a0/0x3a0 evict+0x4ac/0x950 ? proc_nr_inodes+0x310/0x310 ? trace_ext4_drop_inode+0xa2/0x220 ? _raw_spin_unlock+0x1a/0x30 ? iput+0x4cb/0x7e0 do_unlinkat+0x495/0x7c0 ? try_break_deleg+0x120/0x120 ? 0xffffffff81000000 ? __check_object_size+0x15a/0x210 ? strncpy_from_user+0x13e/0x250 ? getname_flags+0x1dc/0x530 __x64_sys_unlinkat+0xc8/0xf0 do_syscall_64+0x65/0x110 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x67/0x6f RIP: 0033:0x434ffd Code: 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 0f 1f 00 f3 0f 1e fa 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 8 RSP: 002b:00007ffc50fa7b28 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000107 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007ffc50fa7e18 RCX: 0000000000434ffd RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000020000240 RDI: 0000000000000005 RBP: 00007ffc50fa7be0 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000001 R13: 00007ffc50fa7e08 R14: 00000000004bbf30 R15: 0000000000000001 </TASK> The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff888012c12000 which belongs to the cache filp of size 360 The buggy address is located 196 bytes inside of freed 360-byte region [ffff888012c12000, ffff888012c12168) The buggy address belongs to the physical page: page: refcount:1 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x12c12 head: order:1 mapcount:0 entire_mapcount:0 nr_pages_mapped:0 pincount:0 flags: 0x40(head|node=0|zone=0) page_type: f5(slab) raw: 0000000000000040 ffff888000ad7640 ffffea0000497a00 dead000000000004 raw: 0000000000000000 0000000000100010 00000001f5000000 0000000000000000 head: 0000000000000040 ffff888000ad7640 ffffea0000497a00 dead000000000004 head: 0000000000000000 0000000000100010 00000001f5000000 0000000000000000 head: 0000000000000001 ffffea00004b0481 ffffffffffffffff 0000000000000000 head: 0000000000000002 0000000000000000 00000000ffffffff 0000000000000000 page dumped because: kasan: bad access detected Memory state around the buggy address: ffff888012c11f80: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ffff888012c12000: fa fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb > ffff888012c12080: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ^ ffff888012c12100: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fc fc fc ffff888012c12180: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc ---truncated---

Published: 2025-05-01 Last update: 2026-06-17 Assigner: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
NVD Status：Analyzed，CVE State: published
View at NVD, CVE.org, EUVD

CVE-2025-37738 is rated Low Risk (33.3/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.16%). Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-37738

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-06-15 0.03% 0.16% +0.13%
2 2026-06-09 0.05% 0.03% -0.02%
3 2026-02-25 — 0.05% —

Full EPSS history (8 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-37738

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.8 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
 1.8 5.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-37738

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-37738

vendor priority summary link
debian not yet assigned CVE-2025-37738 not yet assigned priority: Debian including 2 source packages (linux, linux-6.1), 6 status rows across 5 suites (bookworm, bullseye, forky, sid, trixie): resolved 6. https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2025-37738
redhat medium — https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-37738
suse medium — https://www.suse.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-37738/
ubuntu medium CVE-2025-37738 medium priority: Ubuntu including 158 source packages (linux, linux-allwinner-5.19, …), 1551 status rows across 10 suites (bionic, focal, jammy, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): DNE 1145, ignored 168, released 162, needed 45, not-affected 28, needs-triage 2, pending 1. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2025-37738

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-37738

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
linux linux_kernel < 5.4.293 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.5, < 5.10.237 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.11, < 5.15.181 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 5.16, < 6.1.135 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.2, < 6.6.88 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.7, < 6.12.24 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.13, < 6.13.12 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
linux linux_kernel >= 6.14, < 6.14.3 cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
debian debian_linux 11.0 cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:11.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2025-37738

URL Tags
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/362a90cecd36e8a5c415966d0b75b04a0270e4dd Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3bc6317033f365ce578eb6039445fb66162722fd Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6aff941cb0f7d0c897c3698ad2e30672709135e3 Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/76c365fa7e2a8bb85f0190cdb4b8cdc99b2fdce3 Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/836e625b03a666cf93ff5be328c8cb30336db872 Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c8e008b60492cf6fd31ef127aea6d02fd3d314cd Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cf9291a3449b04688b81e32621e88de8f4314b54 Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/eb59cc31b6ea076021d14b04e7faab1636b87d0e Patch
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f737418b6de31c962c7192777ee4018906975383 Patch
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/05/msg00030.html Mailing List
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/05/msg00045.html Mailing List
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